Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear?
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: Minato tries, and mostly fails, to ask Lee on a date. side fic to "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds"


**Author's Note: The usual warnings of this being a side fic to "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" and if you haven't read that then you'll be fairly confused and that this is NOT CANON (because future things, you know).**

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It was really sort of a spur of the moment thing, or at least, that's what Minato told himself. After all, it wasn't as if he'd consciously thought about it for a long time, or any time at all, and truth be told it was mostly because of travelling around with Jiraiya-sensei (and suddenly finding himself introduced to many a red-light district and many a busty prostitute) that Minato even realized well…

That maybe his feelings for Lee weren't all that platonic, and maybe they hadn't been for a while.

He couldn't quite pinpoint when this switch had happened, only, he knew by the time he was fourteen, back in the village for the first time in months, greeted by a taller and ever so slightly curvier (not enough that Jiraiya would pay attention, but enough that Minato could notice the differences, could realize there were growing differences) as soon as he passed through the gates, that Minato's feelings were very much headed deeply towards that non-platonic territory.

Well, that wasn't quite true, for a month or so after that he'd wondered if it was a phase. After all, around the same time he found himself staring after Uzumaki Kushina too (and wondering if maybe he just didn't have a thing for pale skin and bright red hair). Except, with Uzumaki it never seemed to last more than a second or two, he didn't blush or get distracted or stutter or say the dumbest things he'd ever said in his life, with Lee it was much worse.

She once asked him, on the rare occasion where they were both between missions and Minato wasn't wandering off with Jiraiya only god knew where, and Minato suddenly remembered that he and Lee shared an apartment by themselves and Minato could do anything he wanted and no one would even notice, if he was sure he hadn't suffered a severe blow to the head or else picked up a brain tumor.

So, clearly, by the time Minato was fifteen, he was pretty sure that it wasn't a phase and that it wasn't going to go away any time soon.

Which left him with the nauseating thought that he was going to have to do something about this. Well, of course, one option was to do nothing.

And he did that for a while, a long time, and nothing was fine. After all, nothing was his friendship with Lee (which, looking back, had always been an abnormally close friendship, one that even the best of friends might find a tad bit invasive). Nothing was safe, was fine, but all the same…

Minato found himself growing tired of nothing, or perhaps it was that he wanted more than that, kept catching hints that they could be more than they were. In her smile, in his, in the passing years and changing seasons…

He kept thinking to himself about where they would be three years from then, they would both be eighteen, both having been jonin for more than a few years, they'd probably both have students…

And they'd both have long since been old enough to get married, old enough even by civilian or English standards.

And perhaps, even more than the stray desperate thoughts of sex (which always managed to hit at the worst time), were those tender dreams of later, of raising a family of strawberry blonde children with turquoise eyes.

So maybe it wasn't a surprise, lying on his back with Lee and watching the clouds roll by, his muscles sore and aching while his heartbeat slowed after their spar, that he suddenly found himself blurting, "Lee, do you want to come have dinner with me tonight?"

For a moment Lee said nothing, just continued to lie back breathing slightly heavier than usual, which really was more of a boost to Minato's ego than anything else (that he now could at least make Lee slightly winded in a spar before finding himself completely crushed), then she asked, "Were we not going to eat dinner?"

"No, no, we were but…" he raised himself up on his forearms, peering down at her, at her closed eyes and pale finely crafted features and her perfectly oblivious expression that he was perhaps far too fond of, "Something other than ramen, something… special."

"What's wrong with ramen?" Lee's eyes opened, narrowing on him, groaning as she rolled into a sitting position, "I like ramen."

"We get ramen all the time, don't you ever think it's time we try something new?"

"New things are expensive," Lee dismissed with a wave of her hand, "I'm not made of money."

He only had to give her a look for Lee to flush and recant, "Alright, so I might be made of foreign money, but I also remember not having that money and I prefer not to waste it on things like… not ramen."

"I'll pay," Minato insisted, and the dreaded blush started coming back, as he wondered if that was what was supposed to happen in this situation. It was the man that paid, right? Or at the very least the person who was inviting the other one, wasn't it, or was that just insulting to Lee somehow?

Not that it should be insulting, Lee, after all, had been a secret clan heir this entire time, Minato was still dirt poor. If Minato was paying for dinner, expensive dinner, then she had to know it meant something.

"You'll pay?" Lee asked, eyebrows now raised, "You'll pay, and you want to go somewhere more expensive than ramen."

"Yes, I'll pay and I want to go somewhere else, it's… a date, Lee." He stopped, willed himself not to stammer or blush or try to deny this last statement as he stood, pulled her up with him, and then guided her back to their apartment, "It will be fun, I promise."

"It's your money," Lee said, still looking quite doubtful as she stared at him, her face far too close for his own ease of mind, "I thought you'd want to be more conservative, though, didn't you say you needed to buy more ink and parchment?"

"I have enough money for that," Minato retorted quickly, looking steadfastly at the horizon rather than her face and the shadows her eyelashes cast over her cheekbones whenever she blinked, "Besides, this is important."

"I find there are often things of far more importance than dinner," Lee responded rather drily, "For example, not dying, is far more important than dinner. And since your fuinjutsu is perhaps directly correlated to preventing your untimely death, I would have thought you'd be more aware of your priorities."

"Normally I'd agree but… Lee, do you ever wish…" he tried to say it, he felt her eyes on him waiting for him to say it, but his mind went blank and all he could see was Uzumaki Kushina of all people in hysterics, pointing and laughing at him.

And why was his imagination so vivid? He really didn't need that image in his head right now.

"I try not to wish for things… Also, being able to alter reality to my whims usually means I can get anything I want." Lee finished for him, and Minato felt his cheeks heat again, this time more out of embarrassment than anything else.

Why was it that he just seemed to have gotten worse with age?

"Never mind, it's not… We don't need to talk about it, right now anyways," Minato took a shuddering breath, the next words rushing out, "Just, this is really important to me, okay?"

"There will be other dinners, Minato." Lee said, patting him consolingly on the shoulder.

And he knew she didn't mean it, just as she never really meant it, just as she kept missing the signs that were so obvious to everyone but her (hell, even to Minato himself), he just couldn't help but shortly retort, "It's not about the dinner!"

She blinked, blinked again, a frustrated look growing on her face, "It's not? What the hell have we been even talking about then?!"

"I… Are you really that blind?" He stopped in the middle of the street, tugging on strands of his hair, almost willing to bash his head repeatedly into a wall (because god knew he'd have more luck with that then he was having with Lee).

"No, just extremely confused!" Lee said, also stopping, smacking a hand against her head and racking a palm through her hair, "First you get upset about ramen, which, fine, whatever, then you want to pay for my more expensive dinner, then you don't even care about dinner, and now it's suddenly about whether I need glasses? Minato, you haven't made sense in months!"

He laughed leaning against a building, willing himself not to notice the small crowd of gossiping shinobi they were attracting, and he just knew that this whole scene would be spread across the village in minutes, Minato and Lee the laughing stock of Konoha, "Don't you think maybe there's a reason for that?"

Lee threw her hands in the air, as if questioning god himself, and cried out into the sky, "Yes, but no one ever listens when I say reality is falling apart! No, my reasons are never good enough! And… And it can't take you! It can take them, it can take _England_ , it can take anything else if it wants but I can't let it take you, Minato!"

She stopped then, and looking at her, he found her wearing an expression laced with bitter fear, grief, and a tenderness that he'd somehow always forgot was in Lee's eyes when she looked at him, "I'm trying not to do anything desperate, Minato, but you haven't been leaving me much of a choice…"

And suddenly, even though Lee's world seemed to be falling apart, everything was perfectly fine.

"You're right," he smiled, still fighting down his laughter, walked back over to her, slipped his arm through hers, and continued the walk to their apartment, "I haven't been doing this very well at all, have I?"

"Doing what?" Lee asked, still clearly beyond frustrated, "Seriously, what are we even talking about?"

"Dating you," he replied, his sudden confidence not even taking a dive when she continued to look completely flabbergasted, beyond frustrated, and utterly confused, "Hey, Lee, what do you think about marriage? Not now, but in a few years, three or so…"

"… I'm not opposed to marriage?" Lee asked, as if this was something that should be asked as a question rather than definitively answered.

"And kids?" Minato continued, eyes forward on the shadow the future seemed to cast on the present, "I've always wanted a large family. You were always there with me but it would have been nice to have siblings as well as my parents."

"…Sure…" Lee frowned, before sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation, "Does this mean we're still doing… expensive dinner?"

"Well, not unless you want to," Minato said with a smile that came easier than it had in months, "I think a movie and takeout ramen will probably do just as well. And you're right, it's much easier on my wallet."

"I hope you know I'm still confused… and slightly concerned." Lee retorted, in a tone that only went to prove that she would put up with none of his reality breaking shenanigans.

"That's fine," Minato said stopping to look at her on his doorstep, then, cupping her face in his and tilting it up (he'd grown taller than her recently), he kissed her lightly against the lips just as he'd been tempted to do so many times before, "I'll try to be clearer."

And somehow, her blankly staring back at him, her eyebrows twitching downward, and her shout of, "That makes nothing clear, Minato!" only caused him to laugh and think that yes, somehow, in some impossible Lee and Minato way, things would probably work out.

(Unfortunately, their second date, which despite Minato's best intentions ended in fire, disaster, and the walking dead, couldn't be said to have gone nearly as well as the first.)

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 **Author's Note: That may have been one of the sappiest things I've ever written, I don't know how I feel about that. Written for the 1500th review of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" by Hikari Nova who asked for a fic detailing Minato and Lee's first date. Which turned more into Minato trying to ask Lee on their first official date, much to Lee's complete and utter confusion.**

 **Thanks to readers, reviews are much appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter.**


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